Amateur Artist's Girlfriend Disappears Mysteriously, Bloody Paintings Hide Murder Clues
Today I want to talk about a series of brutal murders that spanned several countries in Europe and lasted nearly 20 years. The murderer, John Sweeney, is considered to be one of the most murderous, vicious and dangerous criminals in Britain in recent years.
The Liverpool carpenter, known as "The Canal Murderer", dismembered his former girlfriends and threw them into the canals of European countries, and then recorded the details of these horrific killings in his "art works".
1990, Netherlands
On May 3, 1990, in Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands, a canal diver (persons responsible for salvage, clearance and maintenance) found a human torso in the Westersingel Canal on grey travel bag.
All the remains are stitched together to form the dismembered corpse of a young woman, but without the head or limbs. At that time, this meant that the facial features, dental records and fingerprints of the deceased could not be obtained, which meant that the police had no way to determine the identity of the female body.
Almost at the same time, a family from the United States was in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, anxiously looking for their missing family member: Melissa Halstead.
Melissa Halstead was born in Dayton, Her father was a dentist. Melissa's parents divorced when she was a teenager. After graduating from high school, Melissa worked at a local restaurant
However, Melissa, whose face and figure are astonishingly beautiful, is destined not to remain unknown for a long time. At the age of 18, she was discovered by a modeling agency in New York. A year later, she has begun to travel to European countries for catwalks.
Although she didn't become a supermodel, Melissa's modeling career was considered a success.
Her friends describe her as intelligent, not trusting others easily, but loyal once trusted. Her brother Jack described her as frank, brave and adventurous. Melissa, who was born in a small town in the Midwest of the United States, has a bohemian free temperament. She often travels to European countries alone, and does not have frequent contact with her family.
In the mid-1980s, Melissa moved to London and became a freelance photographer. In 1986, Melissa participated in an art exhibition, so she met John Sweeney, a carpenter who made furniture for the exhibition.
John Sweeney was born in Liverpool, England in 1956, but spent most of his childhood with his mother in Skelmersdale, Lancashire In the emerging mining area, most of the residents are blue-collar families like the Sweeneys.
John Sweeney has been very passionate about art since he was a boy, and hoped to study art at university, but due to family pressure, he chose a "practical" career and went to a local technical school to study joinery.
His "artistic talent" failed to display, and John Sweeney has been brooding.
At the age of 20, John Sweeney married a local woman named Anne Bramley, with whom they had two children.
Their marriage was full of violence and abuse from the start. The two divorced in 1979, and two years later, Anne tried to "give the father of the child another chance", and the two remarried briefly.
In 1982, Anne and John Sweeney divorced again. After the divorce, John Sweeney was still entangled with her. When he came home, John Sweeney, who was hiding in the closet, suddenly jumped out with an axe and said that he wanted to "give her a surprise". He ran away and went to the police station to report the crime.
In the mid-1980s, John Sweeney moved to London, where he met Melissa, and the two soon married, living together in Melissa's apartment in Chelsea, London's fashionable arts district.
However, the sweetness of the love soon changed. When the two lived together in London, Melissa's sister, Chance, went to visit her sister. She had a very bad impression of her sister's boyfriend and suspected that he often Beat Melissa (Melissa has bruises on her body).
After this, John Sweeney was twice arrested for "assaulting" Melissa, fined 5 pounds on both occasions, and asked by London police to "stop making trouble".
In 1988, Melissa's work visa expired, and she should have had a chance to get out of this dangerous relationship, but unfortunately she didn't. Together with John Sweeney, she traveled to Vienna, the capital of Austria.
The relationship between the two continued for a few more months, and Melissa finally proposed to break up. Unexpectedly, John Sweeney readily agreed, and it seemed that there was no entanglement. A few days later, he came to Melissa's apartment under the pretext of taking his belongings. Melissa just let him in, John Sweeney immediately raised the hammer hidden behind him and hit Melissa hard. 's head.
Fortunately, while Melissa was struggling, she was able to call a nearby friend for help, who called the police. Austrian police arrested John Sweeney and sentenced him to six months in prison.
After sentencing, John Sweeney was to be sent back to the UK, but Melissa pleaded with the judge. Melissa's family has been concerned about her relationship with John Sweeney, and Melissa's sister Charnes asked her if she was crazy, but Melissa said John Sweeney was "crying and begging himself, And promise not to be entangled in the future", John Sweeney was eventually released.
After this, Melissa went to Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands (early 1989), and it didn't take long for John Sweeney to follow, living in an apartment next to Melissa, and the two started a kind of full The relationship between the storms and the splits and the closes.
Melissa's brother Jack Halstead recalled that he once had a big fight with his sister on the phone, and he asked Melissa angrily:
"How can you let a man who beat you come back into your life?!"
Melissa hung up the phone without saying a word, and Jack still feels guilty and remorseful to this day. It was the last time the siblings spoke.
Melissa was not unaware of her precarious situation. She solemnly told her sister: "Listen, if one day I go missing, it must be John Sweeney."
Melissa also called her father for help (phone message), saying that someone was pestering her, hoping to borrow a little money to bring her home, but when her father tried to contact her daughter again, the phone went unanswered .
In November 1989, Melissa called her mother to congratulate her on her birthday (also a phone message), the last time she had contact with her family.
In April 1990, Melissa's landlord found her missing. The landlord had been on vacation before, because Melissa prepaid the rent, so she didn't realize the difference until she returned from vacation.
Melissa's father also hired a local Dutch investigator to look for traces of his daughter, but neither the Amsterdam police nor the investigator found anything.
Melissa Halstead, 33, just disappeared out of thin air.
Melissa's father died at the age of 85 without hearing from her daughter.
According to a later reconstruction of the case by Dutch police, they believe that John Sweeney killed Melissa in his Amsterdam apartment, dismembered her, wrapped her body in a tarp, put it in a travel belt, and brought Rotterdam throws corpses.
Therefore, the Amsterdam police and investigators all "find the wrong place", so there was a missing woman in Amsterdam with unknown life and death, and an unclaimed corpse appeared in the canal of Rotterdam.
Melissa's brother Jack still can't figure out why her younger sister, who is both talented and beautiful, "will not leave" such a man who is inferior to her in all aspects and has a serious tendency to violence.
The theory of the London police is that John Sweeney controlled Melissa with drugs (drugs), but Melissa's family was in her Amsterdam apartment and did not find any drugs.
The relationship between Melissa and John Sweeney is unknown now, but we may be able to glimpse a series of manipulative tactics in John Sweeney's next victim.
2. 1994, UK
Because there is no criminal record in the Netherlands, after Melissa's body was thrown away, John Sweeney left the country smoothly. He returned to the UK around Christmas 1990 to Camden Town in the West End of North London.
Adjacent to Regent's Canal, Camden is world-famous for its markets, an alternative culture mecca filled with niche boutiques, antique shops, alternative clubs and old-school pubs, popular with tourists, teenagers and punks of favor.
At the famous Hawley Arms Pub in Camden, John Sweeney met his next victim, Delia Balmer.
One day in the spring of 1991, Delia was fiddling with the jukebox at the Hawley Arms Bar when she noticed a man staring at her with a somewhat disturbing look, a man younger than Delia. A man of a few years old, with a bohemian temperament and exoticism, then the man came over and asked Delia if he could buy her a drink.
Delia recalled afterwards, "I think he smelled my 'smell', the scent that he could capture". But at the time, Lydia, who was a little lonely and a little bored, didn't realize it, and she had a good time with this man named John Sweeney.
John Sweeney told Delia that he had been engaged in construction work in Germany before and had been to several European countries, which made Delia, who loves travel, feel very connected.
Delia recalled that John Sweeney looked very nice, often stammered when he spoke, and seemed shy and shy.
However, it was only after a long time that Delia realized that all of this was just a game of John Sweeney, a hunting game that was difficult to survive.
After getting acquainted at the Hawley Arms bar, John Sweeney quickly sent flowers to Delia, and then graciously called to help her repair the weak fan mentioned in the previous chat. window.
The first time I went to Delia's apartment, in addition to fixing the windows, John Sweeney made her a side table. Soon after, John Sweeney personally designed and produced a new solid wood bed, which Delia had longed for but simply couldn't afford.
Whether it is Melissa or Delia, John Sweeney will create a character set that fits with each other's characteristics. When these women were impressed by the "fit" between the two, they didn't know it was just an elaborate illusion created by John Sweeney.
When he met Melissa, he was a young blue-collar literary and artistic youth who had "unfulfilled ambitions" due to family pressure. In Delia's place, he transformed himself into a hobby with her (travel), a skillful mind and a show of ingenuity. The reliable and warm man at home.
If you compare photos of John Sweeney with different girlfriends, it's hard to even tell if it's a person.
John Sweeney soon moved into Delia's apartment and assured his new girlfriend, who still had doubts, that he would never "get into trouble".
But his behavior became more and more aggressive, and his desire to control became stronger and stronger. At the beginning, he kept calling and checking posts, and then restricted Delia from socializing with other friends. If Delia did not obey, John S. Willie will maliciously destroy Delia's property and steal money.
Delia recalled: "Small changes happened slowly. I knew what should be wrong, but I was too weak and too willing to trust him. I had never encountered such a thing before."
Tenderness, empathy, and understanding are among the most precious emotional values that couples in love bestow on each other, but John Sweeney uses these as "weaknesses" that he can use to manipulate emotionally and spiritually other side.
On a trip to Germany together, John Sweeney viciously beats a local, and Delia realizes she can't stay with this man anymore.
John Sweeney also agreed very readily this time, and seemed to leave in a good mood, but Delia seemed to realize that he would never give up like this. As soon as John Sweeney left, she immediately changed the door. lock.
However, a few days later, late at night, John Sweeney broke in through the bathroom window, tied Delia to the bed, held a gun to her head, repeatedly terrorized, raped and beat her, and threatened if she issued With a scream, she cut off her tongue with a kitchen knife.
Delia remembered that John Sweeney's always smiling eyes suddenly projected a cold, devilish light, and he seemed to be able to understand all his thoughts, and then he held up an old photo and asked, "With you Who is that man?"
It was an old photo for many years, a commemorative photo of Delia and a female friend, with two other boys who met by chance, and Delia couldn't even remember their names.
Then, John Sweeney took out another cigarette case, which was given to her by one of Delia's ex-boyfriends a long time ago. The cigarette case was engraved with the ex-boyfriend's name.
"Who is this man whose name is engraved?"
Delia put all the old things in a big box, and she almost forgot their existence. Obviously, John Sweeney had already secretly "checked" it behind her back.
Delia tried to hide her panic, and she didn't even dare to let her heart beat so loudly, because the sudden heartbeat alone could become the fuse of John Sweeney's anger. Such absurd "derailing questioning" continued for a long time, and John Sweeney seemed to be temporarily satisfied. He walked a few steps in the room and suddenly growled:
"Do you want to know what happened to my American girlfriend Melissa?"
Then he swung the blade above Delia like a madman, and said calmly:
"Melissa was in our room in Amsterdam, and there were two Germans. I killed them all, and I sat next to the bodies for three days. On the third day, I cut up their bodies and put them in bag, and then into the canal."
Two full days later, John Sweeney let go of Delia, "apology" and "assurance" that he would not "do it again", and then walked away.
Delia immediately called the police, who arrested John Sweeney, but he was soon released on bail (on the condition that he promise to stay away from his ex-girlfriend) for "admittedly good manners".
Delia kept begging the police, saying that if John Sweeney was released, she would be attacked again.
She also told police that she found a creepy green canvas bag that John Sweeney was hiding behind a splint in the bathroom, which contained tape, rope, rubber gloves, a large sheet of tarpaulin, a handful of A saw and a clean change of clothes - a "dismemberment kit" made just for her.
However, the police were not alert to this. They thought it was the "normal" equipment of John Sweeney, who was a carpenter. They didn't take John Sweeney's previous murder confession seriously, but Delia was reassured lightly that John Sweeney would not breach bail conditions, and no form of habeas corpus was subsequently given to her.
Late at night on December 22, 1994 (just hours before John Sweeney was released on bail), Delia went home alone for Christmas after get off work. She remembered that it was the darkest, coldest night of the year, the streets were deserted and the silence was deadly. Delia pushed the bicycle into the apartment, and was about to go up the stairs when John Sweeney suddenly appeared, with a cold smile on his face, an axe in his hand, and a sharp knife around his waist:
"You didn't expect to see me here, did you?"
On the concrete steps in the corridor, John Sweeney attacked Delia frantically. Delia remembered that the last thing she saw was her severed little finger flying into the air, and then she lost consciousness.
A few years later, the police found a painting titled "The Scalphunter" ("Scalp Hunter" became another nickname for him) in John Sweeney's "artwork". A bloody axe, a severed little finger and a blond (Delia's), flayed scalp - no doubt, John Sweeney's original Delia's prepared ending.
Fortunately, Delia's screams alarmed one of her neighbors (to be precise, the neighbor's son). This young man not only has a chivalrous heart for righteousness and courage, but also has an explosive force, and he beat John Sweeney away with a baseball bat.
By the time the police finally arrived, John Sweeney had already disappeared into the dark night.
Delia was stabbed in the lungs, had severe stab wounds all over her chest, thighs and arms, and lost her little finger forever.
However, Delia, who survived the disaster, was not happy, she recalled, "For me, Delia has died on that cold concrete step, I don't care anymore, I don't want to live in anger (the police don't do anything) ) and pain, don't want to live in this riddled body - he wants me to die in pain, he has fulfilled his wish. Both mentally and physically, I will be in pain for the rest of my life through to death."
To be continued
If you want to know the follow-up, please leave your email to accept it as soon as possible